


The Housemate from Hell

by octopus_fool



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Crack, Gen, Humor, Strange food habits, Strange toilet habits, snoring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 15:55:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15998504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octopus_fool/pseuds/octopus_fool
Summary: Living in the same house as the Dark Lord was great, fantastic even. Draco’s friends were impressed when he told them. At least Crabbe and Goyle were suitably impressed. And they had the mental capabilities of, well, Crabbe and Goyle.





	The Housemate from Hell

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laughing_lemur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughing_lemur/gifts).



> Written for my best friend and beta, laughing_lemur, who also helped brainstorm this during a very silly late evening conversation. :)
> 
> Warning: Contains one slightly incest-ish scene (case of mistaken identity, nothing happens, but I thought I'd warn for it just in case).

Living in the same house as the Dark Lord was great, fantastic even. Draco’s friends were impressed when he told them. They envied his opportunity to be this close to true power. At least Crabbe and Goyle were suitably impressed. And they had the mental capabilities of, well, Crabbe and Goyle.

 

The truth was that living with the Dark Lord sucked. Pansy had complained that Draco was obsessed with Harry Potter more than once during the past year, but that was nothing compared to the Dark Lord. Because he was taking obsessed to a new level. He talked about Potter day and night. Where he could be, how to capture him, how to punish him. It was Potter, Potter, Potter, almost worse than it had been at Hogwarts. 

This evening, there had been hour-long shouting which had by now turned into whining. Draco did not know what impulse made him do it. He held out a tissue to the Dark Lord.

“Whatever is that for?”

“I thought you might want to blow your… Oh.”

It was a good thing Draco had taken up muggle training methods for Quidditch. Running was completely underrated. 

 

Most people thought the Dark Lord didn’t have a sense of humour. Unfortunately, that wasn’t true. Draco would have said the Dark Lord had an awful sense of humour, but that probably would have been an inaccurate description too. Because the truth was that the Dark Lork had the sense of humour of a five-year old.

Draco did not know how the Dark Lord had come upon them, but somehow, he had discovered knock-knock jokes. 

It was late one evening on which Draco knew that the Dark Lord and Bellatrix had once again asked Wormtail to open one of the expensive bottles of wine from the cellar. There was a knock on the door. 

Draco sighed and twisted his face into what he hoped was a friendly expression. “Come in.”

“Knock-knock,” said an only too familiar voice.

“Come in,” Draco repeated, slightly puzzled.

“Knock-knock,” the Dark Lord said again, starting to sound slightly impatient.

Draco got up and opened the door. “Yes, my Lord?” 

“Knock-knock.”

Draco stared at the Dark Lord, desperately trying to figure out what he wanted. It couldn’t possibly be...

“Who’s there?” Draco tried cautiously, only too aware of how horribly wrong this could go. 

The Dark Lord grinned. “You-Know-Who.”

Draco did not groan. He did not face-palm. He did not scream. With a lot of effort, he trained his face into what could be considered a laugh. 

“That’s a good one, my Lord.”

The Dark Lord giggled. “It’s just hysterical, isn’t it?”

“Yes, my Lord. Absolutely hysterical.”

The Dark Lord whisked down the corridor, laughing to himself. Draco stayed behind, slightly traumatized.

It wasn’t just the fault of the wine either, since the same thing happened the next evening, and the evening after that. Draco soon stopped counting and tried to get used to listening to the same joke every. single. evening. 

 

It wasn’t all bad though. The Dark Lord didn’t clog the shower with long blond hair, which couldn’t be said of other members of the household. He didn’t need hours to powder his nose or apply makeup, nor did the bathroom smell of rat shit after he had used it. In fact, Draco wasn’t sure he used the bathroom at all. 

Once that thought had struck Draco, it wouldn’t let go of him. Draco had never been one to let something go uninvestigated after all. He started watching whether the Dark Lord took bathroom breaks during Death Eater meetings. The big problem was that Draco couldn’t go that long without a break himself no matter how little he drank, and he couldn’t be sure that the Dark Lord didn’t use that time to go himself. 

“Did the Dark Lord use the bathroom while I was gone?” he finally asked Pansy, feeling his parched lips crack as he spoke. It had been almost a day since he had last drank anything.

She stared at him. “No? I don’t think I even want to know why you’re asking…”

“Never mind...”

Pansy shook her head and took a sip of her tea. Now it was Draco’s turn to stare as he imagined the the wonderfully liquid tea running down his dry throat.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” Pansy asked. Her eyes widened. “Oh. I thought you no longer felt that way... Do you want to go outside once this is over? Or maybe to your room?”

She licked her moist lips.

Draco couldn’t help himself. He grabbed her teacup and gulped the tea down in a few hasty swallows before grabbing the teapot as well. 

A thin line of precious, liquid tea dribbled down his chin when he finally finished drinking. Everyone was staring at him, except for his mother who was hiding her face in shame.

Great. Draco was no closer to solving the riddle of the Dark Lord’s toilet habits and he had made a complete fool of himself. Just great. 

 

It wasn’t as though there was no reason for the Dark Lord to use the toilet. No matter how picky he was in regards to food, he did eat. Which didn’t mean the meals weren’t a bit of an adventure – or a trial, depending on how strong your stomach was.

The first meal with the Dark Lord had come as a bit of a shock. He inspected the food in front of him closely. 

“Wormtail.”

“Oh, yes, my Lord. I’m sorry, my Lord, I didn’t mean to forget. I’m so sorry!”

Quivering even more than usual, Wormtail produced three mice from his pocket. 

“I’m so sorry!” Narcissa stammered. “It’s the old walls, there are crevices in which they can hide everywhere. I’ll do my best to get rid of them, I promise.”

The Dark Lord raised an eyebrow, or at least what should have been an eyebrow. 

“Preheated as always, I hope?” He asked Wormtail, ignoring Narcissa’s stammering.

“Of course, my Lord.” Wormtail draped the mice over the food on the Dark Lord’s plate.

The Dark Lord smiled at the people gathered around the table. “Mice just go so well with everything, don’t you think?”

Narcissa gave a funny little sound and Draco looked over at her. Her face was pale at the best of times, but now it had gone a delicate shade of green. She mumbled something that was probably an apology, then rushed from the room, her hands firmly clasped above her mouth. 

 

It wasn’t entirely horrible though. The initial gag reflex you got from watching the Dark Lord swallowing rodents without even chewing eventually got less. You learned not to look when the tail was still dangling from the corner of his mouth. 

It was a little more unpleasant when Wormtail was off on one of his rare missions, because then the task of supplying the Dark Lord with regular meals became Draco’s. It hadn’t taken long for the infestation Narcissa had been so embarrassed about to shrink considerably. Draco often had to comb the old stables and the meadows to find enough mice. 

 

That wasn’t the worst of it. Because one day, Draco didn’t dare to ask why, the Dark Lord started becoming paranoid that someone would try to poison him.

“I’ll do it for you, my Lord,” Bellatrix volunteered eagerly.

“No. I want him to do it.”

It wasn’t as though Draco didn’t know what to expect. Back at Hogwarts, Millicent’s cat had taken a liking to him. He hadn’t taken a liking to its breath. He had soon been able to tell whether the cat had been fed chicken, pollack or duck. And sometimes, there was that other scent, rather less pleasant. Draco knew what to expect.

Holding his breath and hoping he wouldn’t spread the remains of his breakfast across the table with most of the Death Eaters watching, Draco cut into the mouse. The Dark Lord liked them à la serpent, that was, raw but heated to body temperature. 

Gingerly lifting the piece of mouse with his silver fork, Draco manoevered it into his mouth. Perhaps the Dark Lord didn’t have the wrong idea. If you swallowed without chewing you tasted less of it. With a large gulp, Draco swallowed. He hoped that if he was ever reborn as a cat, someone would drown him before he was weaned.

He beamed his best smile at the spectators. 

“Not bad at all. Anyone else want to try?”

Now all he could do was hope that none of the muggles relatively close by were currently using rat poison to get rid of the rodents on their fields. He took a large gulp of his father’s best whiskey. It at least partially burned the taste away. 

 

Not long after that, the Dark Lord became irritable. His mood usually wasn’t as bad as you might expect, but now, he would shout at you just for breathing too loudly. And not just at Wormtail, who made whistling, unpleasant breathing sounds that could get on anyone’s nerves. 

He yelled at Bellatrix for hovering over his shoulder. Draco rejoiced inwardly and at the same time pledged to stay as far away from the Dark Lord as possible. Bellatrix glared at Draco as if this was his fault. He decided to stay away from her too, just to be on the safe side. 

The Dark Lord threw a hissy fit when the mice Wormtail served were half a degree too warm, or too cold. He finally declared that he would rather starve than eat the horrible food being served. Nagini seemed only too happy about the additional snack. Draco couldn’t say he was entirely against starvation of certain people, not on principle. 

The Dark Lord yelled at Mulciber for being too cheerful. Draco tried to remember if he had ever seen Mulciber smile or laugh before. Narcissa was shouted at for being too blond, Lucius for not being blond enough. Draco spent an entire evening trying to decide whether there was any difference between their hair colour. 

The Dark Lord even reprimanded Nagini for sticking out her tongue. Draco, and he totally should have seen it coming, got shouted at for avoiding the Dark Lord.

So when Draco knocked on the bathroom door and heard a strained “go away, I’m busy” in the Dark Lord’s voice, he didn’t waste any time to wonder. He scarpered. There were other bathrooms in the mansion and at least that question was finally answered.

It was only when he knocked on the same door again hours later and got the same reply that he became suspicious. 

“How long has he been in there?” Draco asked Wormtail, who was just coming around the corner.

Wormtail laughed. “A couple of hours and it will take a couple more. So don’t hold your breath. Well, once he’s done you probably should, or maybe use a different bathroom.”

“A couple of hours?” Draco asked, not at all liking the sudden feeling of Wormtail being smarter than him for once. 

“Digestive system of a snake. He doesn’t need to go for ages, but when he does, it takes ages for the deed to be done. Makes him horribly irritable too, far in advance. I call it PTS, that’s short for pre-toilet syndrome. Clever, isn’t it?”

Draco didn’t do him the favor of shuddering or acknowledging this so-called cleverness in any way. 

“Aha,” he said in his most bored voice. “I need to be going.”

 

The Dark Lord was back at the dinner table that evening, horribly chipper and with enough appetite to down twice the usual amount of mice. Lucius spent the evening on the floo with the plumber. 

Draco made a point of avoiding a certain bathroom for over a week. When he did use it again, he realised he hadn’t stayed away nearly long enough. 

 

That wasn’t the worst part of living in the same house as the Dark Lord. Nothing could be worse than watching Aunt Bellatrix simper. Her face wasn’t made for simpering, nor was her personality. And yet here they were. 

“My Lord, would you like some more tea? My Lord, how about some biscuits? I’d give you a nice massage, my Lord, I’m sure that would do you good after the long day you’ve had. Or would you perhaps prefer a footrub?”

It was definitely enough to put Draco off his biscuits, but when he opened his mouth because he could no longer keep a caustic comment in, his father sent him such a withering glare that Draco immediately closed his mouth again. 

The Dark Lord didn’t react to any of it besides shaking his head at her offers. Draco marveled that the Dark Lord managed to conceal his embarrassment this well, then he wondered if the Dark Lord was even capable of feeling embarrassment. He could only hope so, or else Draco might have the odd displeasure of feeling sorry for the Dark Lord. 

 

It was even worse one evening when someone got out the whiskey Lucius had been saving for a special occasion. The only effect five glasses of it had on the Dark Lord was that his pale face slowly turned red, which was disconcerting in itself. 

The same could not be said for Bellatrix, sadly. She was all over the Dark Lord. From the blank stare the Dark Lord gave her, Draco briefly wondered if he even knew what she wanted, but the thought alone probably would have been an insult of the Dark Lord’s mental capacities, so Draco didn’t even finish the thought. Draco briefly considered calling the aurors to save the Dark Lord from Bellatrix, but quickly decided it was definitely a bad idea. He couldn’t blame the Dark Lord for calling it a night early. 

 

Draco woke with a start. There was something heavy draped across him.

“It’s me, my big Lord Snakeypoo! I have come to make hot, passionate love to you!”

“Aunt Bellatrix? This is me, Draco. You’ve come to the wrong room.”

“Me? But I’ddd... I’d always find the way to you, my Lord Snakeypoo! I’m your, your most loyal servant after all, I am. I’d always find you,” Bellatrix slurred and Draco wondered just how much of the whiskey she had had.

“Not this time. This is the wrong room. How did you get in, anyway?” Draco had taken to locking his room after that time he’d found Wormtail digging through the drawer with Draco’s underpants.

“Alohomoooorrrrrra! Wonderful spell it is too! I’m going to perform alohomora on your heart to find my way in!” Even in the darkness, Draco could see Bellatrix was waving her wand in the general direction of his heart. It was not a sight he had ever wished for and he didn’t want to bet his life on her being too drunk to use magic.

“No, I’m Draco!” He pushed her away and grabbed his wand to light the room. 

The disappointment on her face told Draco that Bellatrix had finally gotten the point, even though he liked to think that he was at least slightly more handsome than the Dark Lord.

Bellatrix had visibly deflated and was about to become tearful. “I’ve failed him again. I can’t find the Dark Lord.”

Draco sighed and took her arm to guide her to the door. “I’m sure you’ll find him. Tomorrow, after a good night’s sleep. I’m sure he’s fast asleep and would prefer not to be disturbed.”

Bellatrix hiccuped and wandered back into the hallway. She turned into the direction that led away from her room, but at least it also led away from the Dark Lord’s room. Draco briefly considered leading her back to her room. But then again, she had woken him from his well-deserved sleep and he wasn’t quite that fond of her either. 

He watched her weaving down the hall.

“Aunt Bellatrix, a word of advice,” Draco called after her, “I don’t think the Dark Lord would appreciate being called ‘Lord Snakeypoo’.”  
Draco did not know if Bellatrix found the Dark Lord’s room, nor did he want to know. She turned up in one piece the next morning, although she did look even more out of it than usual. Draco, for his part, spent the morning in the library researching locking spells. It was something he should have done a long time ago. 

 

As snake-like as the Dark Lord’s habits were in general, he was not as quiet as a snake. Sure, he was horribly good at sneaking up on you and generally wasn’t a loud houseguest. But that was different at night.

It wasn’t in the way dear Aunt Bellatrix would have liked either. No, each night, the entire mansion was shaken to its foundations by deep rumbling snores. Draco had always thought you needed a nose to snore, but apparently, he was wrong. 

 

One morning, Draco found Lucius in the cellar. 

“Father, what are you doing here? Couldn’t you just send a house elf to get...”

It was then that Draco noticed the ruler in his father’s hand. Now, it wasn’t unusual to come across small groups of teenaged boys with a ruler in their hand and giggles and guilty looks on their faces while walking through the darker corners of Hogwarts’ dungeons, but Draco was fairly sure his father had already measured what was to be measured back in the day. 

“Father, what are you doing?”

“I’m just... they haven’t become any wider,” Lucius mumbled, gesturing at the cracks in the wall. “I had to check.”

The thought didn’t help Draco sleep as he lay awake the next night with his pillow and a silencing charm over his head and his fingers jammed into his ears, but it was a tiny bit soothing to know that the ancient house was handling this without threatening to collapse.

 

The same couldn’t be said for Draco. After weeks with barely any sleep, he was close to cracking. Well, close to cracking might have been a bit of an understatement. The truth was that midnight found him standing over the Dark Lord with a pillow clasped in both hands, contemplating just how to go about it. Would the Dark Lord be able to summon enough magic and concentration to push Draco off him? It didn’t matter, Draco decided. ‘Neither could sleep while the other survived,’ his sleep-deprived brain supplied and Draco winced. This had to stop, no matter how. He took a step closer to the bed.

“What are you doing here?!” Bellatrix hissed from the door. “He’s mine! You keep your fingers off him, you little pervert!”

Great. Just great. Now Bellatrix thought he was lusting after the Dark Lord too. Draco wasn’t entirely sure that was much better than being executed as a traitor. Still, he decided to keep his mouth shut. 

 

There was only one thing left for Draco to do, and that was hope. As much as he would have denied it, he was reduced to hoping that stupid old Potter would finally rid him of this housemate from hell. Maybe, if Potter was lucky, Draco would even thank him. But only maybe.


End file.
